Subjects

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Noun:
(French) an awkward or difficult place or situation, a mishap or
predicament.

Hopefully, the to-be-convened summit planned by We Are One for Feb. 11th will yield fruit, if legislators will
attend - as some of the "pension reform leadership" have yet to
acknowledge interest or even awareness. In
fact, Representative Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook, a sponsor of the pension
reform bill HB6258 recently responded that she had not heard of the summit (http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x1578914071/State-unions-propose-pension-summit
).

Between last week and the next month’s scheduled summit, retiree
Glen Brown reiterated a long-espoused position that Illinois faces a revenue
problem, complicated by its pension debt in a petition on Signon.Org. To date, Glen has received nearly 4000
signatures and another thousand calls to hold firm against the General
Assembly’s maneuverings to place the weight of the revenue correction on the
public sector workers – past and present.
Various members of the public sector leadership(s) in Illinois have
signed on, and one (IRTA) has placed the petition on its website (http://signon.org/sign/illinois-revenue-and?source=c.em.cp&r_by=1130041
).

Others have decided that while they support the undertakings of
activists and thinkers like Glen, they cannot concur specifically to the call
as expressed in the petition’s wording.
Note: Those same leaders have
also, in some cases, signed that very petition. On the other hand, if not exactly on
message, others warn that such examples of rolling the dice or obstinacy is
ultimately a self-defeating extremism.
Such contretemps fails to recognize the like enemy we all face beginning
January 30th. In fine, we all
need be mindful that identifying our separate positions as extremist will not
help, and that Glen's response to the perceived issues surrounding his petition
are quite revealing and reverberating.
The actual extremism is found in the latest bills - Nekritz's HB 6258 and
Cullerton's secondary option in case the first is found unconstitutional.

Whether or not the coalition of public sector unions can endorse a
petition or not, to ask We Are One to hold firm is to remind our leadership
that contractual guarantees were made and broken by the same people who would
come to the summit; to remind them that thus far the move to correct the
unfunded liability is being placed on the very people from whom promised
payments were stolen over nearly half a century. They would deny our COLA’s, increase our
contributions beyond any other state, cap our benefits, increase our retirement
ages, offer the falsity of cash balance plans in the place of defined benefits,
choose to lose our health benefits, punish us for having worked in the public
sector, and (if possible) push the cost for pensions to the local
districts. Extremism in this case is an
understatement.

Indeed, IEA leadership’s warning that to do nothing and simply await
a court decision is also unthinkable.
Recall that the statement “Let the courts decide” was the cynical
prediction made by Speaker Madigan – who has been eerily silent – nearly two
years ago. That is not the message of
the petition; case in point, Glen's petition to correct the revenue problem
must be the primary focus if anything permanent and lasting is to be
accomplished. The Center for Tax and
Budget Accountability reminds us all that even given the benefit cuts in their entirety,
the cuts will never keep pace with the 1995 ramp-up to pay back the unfunded
liability of years of non-payment by the state.
Nothing in HB 6258 does anything to address the systemic, structural
revenue failure in Illinois. Nothing in
any proposed legislation put forward have yet to address the ridiculous pension
ramp, which "squeezes" the budget annually at ever-increasing rates. In fact, the General Assembly would return
again to find more ways to cut more benefits, as that seems their extremist
nature.

What We Are One and what
the petition desires are not so very different: to call attention to serious
long-term answers to the revenue crisis in Illinois, and to demand that the
General Assembly address the problem without breaking the contractual
agreements made to all in the public sector who have given what was asked - in
work and in payment. In the last week,
proposals by Representative Naomi Jakobsson and Representative Linda Chapa La Via for a graduated income tax
(HJRCA0002) may perhaps demonstrate a first legislative recognition that
revenue is both the problem and the answer.
Last spring, I listened to the Representative Bill Cunningham,
Representative Kelly Burke, and Representative Mary Flowers endorse their own
beliefs that a graduated income tax was necessary in the near future to help
Illinois move forward financially.
Lately I see that Representative Kelly Cassidy has also signed on the
need for a graduated income tax.

Perhaps there are other voices and minds besides the extremists – in
the General Assembly. Let’s keep talking
to them.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Noun: Liar’s
dice is a game that involves great abilities in deception and bluffing. In it, two or more players roll four or more dice
under a cup, peek at their own result, and make bets against the other
player(s). As with most gambling games –
appropriate to our vocabulary post this week – probability plays an almost
equally important role in the chances of winning.

While the
coalition of public sector unions (We Are One) plan a "summit" to explore
negotiated agreements with the General Assembly in order to avoid a
Constitutional battle in the courts after possible legislation to pension
benefits/contributions; thousands of retired and active public employees are
signing a petition asking these same union leaders to hold firm. Have you decided yet where you stand?

The summit is
planned for February 11th in Burr Ridge, Illinois, and invites
Governor Quinn and four representatives from the General Assembly to parley
with We Are One representatives about the nature of the changes to be made to
the public pension systems in Illinois, now facing a collective unfunded
liability of $94 billion.

We Are One has
asked repeatedly to be given a seat at the table, and now they have asked to
meet with those members and leadership who have moved several potential bills
before the assembly for consideration in late January. Up to this point in time, the public sector
unions have declared they were not invited or part of the potential legislative
fixes. Union leadership has disagreed
with cuts in pension benefits, but they have offered additional contributions
and changes to the business tax codes as possible solutions. Invitee Rep.
Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, had not heard of the union summit, but said she hopes
the talks might produce some results. At the same time, she said "it will
be challenging to come to agreement on the nature of the solution,"
particularly on ending business tax breaks.

Those who wish
to hold firm place their faith in the Illinois Constitutional guarantee of a
“contractual relationship” that “cannot be diminished or impaired.” They also disbelieve any action by members of
the General Assembly to refrain from returning for more benefits after passing
any legislation (even untested in the courts) that does not address the
systemic revenue shortage or the 1995 payment ramp.

You will find a
clearly, logically delineated argument presented in colleague Glen Brown’s
latest blog. Have you decided yet where you stand? Your time’s up.

Why
doesn’t the Illinois Education Association join our efforts and post our public
employees’ petition on its website? Perhaps it is because the Illinois We Are
One Coalition is planning a “summit” with a few, thus far, unsuspecting
legislators (like Elaine Nekritz, for example, “who [said she] had not heard about
the union summit”) slated for February 11 and because “unions have said they’re
willing to have members pay more toward their pensions” in exchange for “ending
a series of business tax breaks…” (State unions
propose pension summit).

Perhaps
it is also because IEA president Cinda Klickna and her coterie are wary of a
possible court battle; thus, they are willing to modify a contract as a sort of
offering or appeasement, hoping legislators will forgo a constitutional
challenge of Article XIII, Section 5 (“Pension Clause”). Nonetheless, many of
us believe there will never be enough placation to satisfy any unscrupulous
legislator with a mania for so-called “pension reform.” Too many legislators
are deeply dependent on the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s
campaign money and influenced by the Committee’s collective ill-will toward
public employees. Eric M. Madiar,
Chief Legal Counsel to Illinois Senate President John J. Cullerton and
Parliamentarian of the Illinois Senate, states it this way: “Pension benefits are under siege for two reasons:
opportunity and political motives” (Defending and
Protecting Public Employees’ Pensions against the Legislative Siege).

Many
public employees (read the comments on our petition online)
argue that unions should not bargain away any of the public employees’
“constitutionally-guaranteed,” earned rights and benefits. Why? Because “a
public employee obtains ‘vested rights’ in the Pension Code provisions relevant
to pension benefits when the employee becomes a member of a pension system by
making his or her initial employee contribution to the system. In addition, the
‘Pension Clause’ protects pension benefit rights as an enforceable contractual
relationship” (Madiar, “Is Welching on
Public Pensions an Option for the State of Illinois…”).

Cullerton
knows this is true. Perchance this is why he has sponsored a bill (it passed
the senate) that will attempt to circumvent the “Pension Clause” by giving
retirees and public employees a “choice” to impair their own contract for a
state guarantee (really?) to fund the pension systems hereafter (here’s a
question with a built-in answer: who will guarantee this funding when the
state’s “normal costs” are shifted to school districts and taxpayers?).
Cullerton’s bill also provides a supposed failsafe, just in case the Civic
Federation and Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s (or the
Nekritz-Biss) pension reform bill, that Cullerton says will be found
“unconstitutional,” is, indeed, found unconstitutional.

All
the same, John Stevens, Legal Consultant for the “We Are One” Labor Coalition,
stated “To take away the Cost-of-Living Adjustment [COLA] for [current and
future] retirees is not a free and fair choice. It is a coercive choice under
duress.” In other words, Illinois legislators will be breaching a contract by
forcing public employees to make a choice to diminish their originally-vested
and paid-for guarantee. Legislators will be attempting to break an enforceable
contractual promise, one that is bilateral and emphasizes an agreement between
the State of Illinois and its retired and current public employees as to their
future rights and benefits.

It
is a diminution of the public employees’ contract to receive less than what the
original vested right and benefit guaranteed. A choice between the COLA and
precarious state-sponsored health care, for example, offers public employees
and retirees no ethical and lawful alternatives except to consent to the
General Assembly’s demands to make an illicit choice.

Consider
that “A contract is a promise or set of promises for the breach of which the
law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes
as a duty (Professor of Law, Emeritus, Claude D. Rohwer and Professor of Law,
Emeritus, Anthony M. Skrocki, Contracts in a Nutshell).

Based
upon both past and current legislators’ dereliction of duty to pay for the
public employees’ constitutionally-guaranteed pensions, it could be found in a
court of law that the Illinois General Assembly has been and will be currently
in “violation of any standard of good faith and fair dealing.” Regarding the
guaranteeing of payments to the public employees’ pension systems, “there is no
way to avoid the conclusion that [it] is a ‘constructive’ condition to [the
General Assembly’s] duty to pay,” (Rohwer & Skrocki), and a “diminishment
and impairment” to the contract or “expressed condition” of the “Pension
Clause.”

Any
modification of the “Pension Clause” should be seen as “the result of a
violation of fair dealing,” as an accommodation for “only” the General Assembly
who have stolen money from the public pension systems for decades and are,
thus, “avoiding a pre-existing duty rule” (Rohwer & Skrocki). In other
words, state legislators were dishonest. “[They] had a duty to perform [and]
didn’t perform [for decades] and, therefore, [they have] breached [their] contract
[with public employees]” (Rohwer & Skrocki).

“Because
there is already a contract relationship in existence which imposes a duty of
good faith upon the parties, there is an issue of whether [this General
Assembly will be] acting in bad faith [once again] in extracting a [coerced]
consent to [a] modification [or impairment of a contract]…” (Rohwer &
Skrocki).

The
significance of any modification of the “Pension Clause” is “the extent to
which [public employees] will be deprived of the benefit [they] reasonably
expected; the extent to which [public employees] can be adequately compensated
for the part of that benefit [COLA, for instance] of which [they] will be
deprived; […and] the extent to which the behavior of the party [Illinois
General Assembly] failing to perform or to offer to perform [or] comports with
standards of good faith and fair dealing” (Rohwer & Skrocki).

The
promise to honor commitments and pay for the public employees’ pension is of
“sufficient importance” to all citizens of Illinois. To pass pension reform is
“an unequivocal manifestation of intention not to perform… legal duties…under a
contract… [To repeat,] when there is a duty of immediate performance of a
promise, failure to perform in full is a breach” (Rohwer & Skrocki).

Many
of us maintain that our unions should not lessen the
constitutionally-guaranteed “Pension Clause” that “protects pension benefit
rights as an enforceable contractual relationship” by “modification through
contract principles.” Why? Because Cullerton, House Speaker Michael Madigan and
his servile followers (Nekritz, Biss, and others) have made it obvious that
they are willing to let “the courts decide” whether their pension reform bills
are illegal or not, regardless of the myriad of upheld antedated cases
on this matter and their oath of office to uphold the State and U.S.
Constitutions.

Though
many legislators would rather dispute one of the Bill of Rights contained in
both the Illinois and U.S. Constitutions instead of addressing the “real
causes” of the state's budget deficits (the pension ramp, the resultant pension
debt, and the state’s insufficient revenue), legislators should reexamine the
concept of justice and what lawfulness demands: that people must keep their
covenants with one another. In particular, no justice is accomplished when
diminishing public employees' earned benefits and rights because of decades of
legislators' irresponsibility, corruption and incompetence.

Let’s
not forget this essential understanding on how we have arrived in this economic
predicament. The state’s unfunded liability has increased to $94 billion.
Forty-six percent of that figure ($43.2 billion) was machinated by legislators
of the State of Illinois. All citizens of the State of Illinois are in this
fiscal morass primarily because of scheming Illinois legislators. Today’s
calamity is not the result of a financial problem that was unforeseen at the
time of the Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1970. To reiterate, the
unfunded liability is a consequence of legislative negligence, dishonesty and
ineptitude. There should not be any consideration (contract modification) of
the public employees’ earned benefits. Thus far, 3,000+ petitioners are quite
lucid and resolute about this conviction.

To
union leadership: Stand firm.Public employees have been victimized
enough. They do not want to contribute more money to their pension fund (one of
the highest in the nation), especially when considering the aforementioned
fraudulent intentions of past Illinois legislators.

Thank
you Gary Elmen, President of the Illinois Retired Teachers Association, for
linking our petition to the IRTA website. Thank you Dan Montgomery, President
of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, for signing our petition; thank you –
public employee, retiree, and family and friends – for signing this most
important petition to stop pension reform…

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Noun: A description
of a personal philosophy “in touch” with a sense of community, responsibility
to the betterment of all those around him/her; one with a wish for the
amelioration of the marginalized, scapegoated, or institutionally deprived. A
credo driving the desire to seek what is morally correct and in the best
interest of the greater good.

Do Something Now: Despite the history of pension holidays and
underfunding, recent bills before the House and additional amendments by the Senate
demonstrate that the General Assembly in Illinois is quite willing to blame much of the
unfunded liability for pensions on the public sector workers and illegally force
them to pay for all of the state’s debt.

Many Illinois
legislators want to challenge both Illinois and U.S. Constitutions instead of
addressing the causes of the state's budget deficits. Illinois public employees
have earned their pension. Their pension is a constitutionally guaranteed
contract.

That's why we
have created a petition to The Illinois State House, The Illinois State Senate,
and Governor Pat Quinn, which says:

"Illinois
has a pension debt and revenue problem. Most legislators know this, and they
also understand the concept of justice and what lawfulness demands: that people
must keep their covenants with one another. No justice is accomplished when
diminishing public employees' earned benefits and rights because of decades of
legislators' irresponsibility, corruption and incompetence. Stop Illinois
pension reform. It is immoral and illegal."

Monday, January 21, 2013

Let’s turn logic on its head for a moment and review the
Chicago Tribune’s recent editorial applause for the National Labor Relations
Board’s finding that teachers in city charter schools like “CMSA (Chicago
Science and Math Academy) cannot join a union.
They can – if they vote for it.
The decision means that the NLRB has recognized that charters are
special, and their teachers are not constricted by the same rules, as, say,
traditional Chicago Public Schools teachers are.” You can find the entire article at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-charters-0121-jm-20130121,0,190687.story.

The editorial also praises the recent decision in its likely
draw of additional charters to Chicago as well as the privatized demonstration
that “with dedicated teachers and the right atmosphere, many charters show that
any student can earn.” For the Chicago Tribune, these necessary
components are always found wanting in public schools, especially those many operating
on limited funds, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of curriculum. Something they choose to overlook. Adding more insult, the editorial suggests
that “dedicated teachers” are not likely to be found in the public
setting. “All of that flexibility is a
direct challenge to the delineated-by-contract, homogenized,
command-and-control system preferred by most teachers union leaders.” Private, good; public, bad.

If you’d like background on the origin of this battle to even
suggest unionization at CMSA, and the repercussions for the poor educator who
was so bold as to request the possibility, you might turn to an earlier blog:

“Noble is forcing
low-income parents to choose between paying the rent and keeping their child in
school. This is a tax on Chicago’s Black and Latino families, and it’s
wrong..” - Donna Moore, parent of a student in Noble
Network Schools.

Charter School Discipline (…or...How to take out
the trash, and look real good)

Back in the day, I mean way back in the day,
students actually got to determine their own form of discipline – a long piece
of green hickory branch usually cut by the very student about to be
switched. This was considered a vast
improvement in exchange for the cane used during the 17th and 18th
centuries. Ah, progress.

After the mid-nineteenth century, continued
disciplinary progress for public students included the paddle, in my own case,
hung in plain sight above the principal’s office desk as a reminder of his overt
ability to dispense justice in the form of extreme pain. But I was just one of many south side kids
being “taught” and civilized in a continuing grand experiment on a national
level.

Before all of us, even unto the mid 1850’s,
education in America was provided primarily to the wealthy, and the overriding
sentiment was that the poor were both uneducable and unworthy any attempts at
education. It wasn’t until 1852 that
Horace Mann, then Secretary of State for Massachusetts, urged all states to
provide education to all students, creating what he hoped would be the
great equalizer and the ultimate disappearance of poverty.

Later, the efforts of modernists like Phillipp
Emanuel von Fellenberg and Francis Parker (1850’s) promoted concepts that
remain current: “modern behavioral modification methods should attempt to
address the underlying reasons or motivations for student misbehavior and
tailor consequences to fit the (particular) transgression. School administrators should seek to
encourage a positive association with school along with socially acceptable
behavior” (www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/discipline.html). In
essence, these movements suggested that learning was best accomplished with
support, encouragement and kindness.
This was quite the opposite of discipline for being incorrect in answer
or deportment. Remember that word, deportment.

In the early 1900’s, as schooling became mandatory
for all American youngsters, teachers found themselves stepping further and
further into the roles of parents (in
loco parentis), and “one value attached to this development asserted that
while adults should be punished for their crimes, children should be
rehabilitated for theirs, thus formalizing a beginning to the separation
between juvenile misconduct and suffering as its remedy” (www.education.uslegal.com/discipline-and-punishment/).

Augmenting these modifications of the kinds of
discipline painfully dished out in the working houses and boarding schools of
the past, the 20th century educator awakened to the concept that
education was more than simply transfer; instead, with the assistance of
forward thinkers like Rosenblatt, Berne, Spock, etc., psycho-social arguments
promoted the student’s own involvement in a transactional paradigm of
learning. In short, teachers and
educators moved way from the traditional belief that students learn best by
rote and by sitting demurely in linear rows at rigid attention; quite the
opposite, best practice now held to a more personalized and interactive
learning/teaching construct.

Enter NOBLE STREET – Stage Far Right.

The Noble Network of Charter Schools, which runs 10
city high schools and yearns for more after recent school closings, has found
an entirely new, novel method of exacting discipline for student
“misbehavior.” This is the same network
of schools that Mayor Rahm Emanuel praised for having the “secret sauce” for
improving students’ scores, behavior, and success rates. It would appear that the secret sauce of
which the Mayor and Superintendent Brizard crow is in great part actually a
monetary disciplinary fee that has raised nearly $400,000 this year for Noble
Street, left parents foundering to scrape together fines that are imposed upon
them for their own student’s deportment, and has caused the flight of
nearly 13% of students from the Noble Street charter schools back into the
public system from whence they came – seeking opportunity and assistance to
improve their own lots in life and finding failure for disciplinarily high
expectations – monetarily?

In fact, according to the Chicago Tribune
(Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen. Protests targets
charter discipline fees. Chicago Tribune.
14 Feb. 2012), the loss of students from the Noble Network schools to
other public districts has increased from 211 students in 2010 to 473 students
in 2011. At the same time, CEO Michael
Milkie will point glowingly at the Noble Networks improved graduation rates,
not surprisingly – from 78.8% in 2010 to 86.2% in 2011. And CEO Mr. Milkie, who earns an annual
salary over $200,000, should be proud of his enterprise’s increased revenue
stream. Noble Street has received almost
$400,000 in disciplinary fees since the 2008-2009 school year
(Ahmed-Ullah). George M. Schmidt of Substance
News reports “the charter company is profiting to the tune of some $200,000
per year from a disciplinary code that can only be called predatory” (www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3055).

Following the kind of schema found in the
factory/transference models of business and schools of the early 1900’s, Noble
Street has implemented the “SMART” disciplinary code. Here is what SMART’s acronym entails:

S = Sit up straight and be ready to learn.

M= Make eye contact when addressed.

A= Articulate in standard English and speak in
proper volume.

R= Respond appropriately.

T= Track the speaker.

Each of these misdemeanors comes with a fine of $5
or more. In fact, infractions include an
unbelievably long list of potential infractions not necessarily spelled out –
chewing gum, carrying “chips,” forgetting your belt, tardiness, carrying a
marking pen, having an energy drink, making a noise with a pen, etc. Each infraction (and others) will cost a
student $5.00 or more (Rossi, Rosalind.
School’s discipline: you act up you pay up. Chicago Sun Times. 14 Feb. 2012).

By the way, if a student is having a bad day – or
time of it – 12 detentions/infractions or more will result in a $140 fine (they
call it a fee) to attend an obligatory class on “behavior.” Additional detentions will result in an
additional discipline class for an additional $140. Any student (more likely their family) who cannot
pay will be held back from moving on to the next class – regardless of his or
her grades. Please keep in mind that
even though Noble Street schools are funded by wealthy benefactors like Penny
Pritzker, nearly 90% of the families are low-income (Schmidt, George), and
cannot afford the mounting fees for students who are having difficulty adapting
to the “SMART” model.

Unlike the public system, Noble is allowed tougher
disciplinary policies than the CPU because it is a charter – remember our
earlier changing characterizations of public vs. private when it came to our
model Chicago Math and Science Academy (see Vocabulary – Feb 19 & 26). Meanwhile, CEO Mr. Milkie affirms that SMART
and the other “disciplinary policies at NOBLE promote basic, common sense
citizenship things, which you know teenagers need” (Golab, Art. www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3055)

On the national level, school chief Arne Duncan also
touts Milkie’s Noble Street agenda and, along with Pritzkers and other wealthy
benefactors, endorses the programs used there:
“’ We’re dramatically changing the opportunity structure,’ Duncan told Chicago a few weeks before leaving his
CPS post to become the U.S. secretary of education. ‘We have tried to make this
[city] a mecca for people who want to make change in public education ‘”
(Rodkin, Dennis. Charting a new course. Chicago Magazine.com. 29 Feb. 2012).

About Me

I am a retiree, political activist, social advocate and community volunteer. I taught at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange for 34 years in the Language Arts classroom and worked as an administrator for several years. My current avocations include various community outreach and assistance programs. Having benefitted from employment in a collegial, reflective teaching environment that encouraged dedication and professionalism, I continue to seek the promotion of education at all levels as a long-term effort combining talent, perseverance, commitment, and constant professional growth - not a blind adherence to a business model of measured production.

Copyrights & Fair Use

This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of issues vital to a democracy. I believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law.